israel. that's where i want to begin this morning. i've got nbc's chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell and "new york times" columnist tom friedman. who better to have to discuss this. tom, as the two sides get closer to the brink, based on your experience and reporting, where is this going? >> let's just go around the horn, david, quickly. i think hamas is trying to use this moment to both break out of the blockade and try to end targeted killing of its leaders from israel, and trying to take advantage of the new arab spring balance of power, the muslim brotherhood in egypt, to leverage that possibility. israel. israel has been watching for the last six to nine months hamas bringing in longer and longer range missiles from iran. i think they saw this as an opportunity of necessity to take those out, missiles that can now hit tel aviv and jerusalem. egypt. this is a real problem for egypt. you have a new government there that needs money from the united states. they don't want t